


Aerial Silk and Other Stories

by Arien



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Slavery, F/M, Public Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:16:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1756073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arien/pseuds/Arien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short, Alternate Universe Smillan fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aerial Silk

**Author's Note:**

> What it says on the tin, basically: one-shot alternate universe Smillan stories. They might be funny, they might be smutty, they might be modern or some weird shit like this first one. They'll all be written in one or two sittings and made up as I go. 
> 
> This first prompt of Circus Performers comes from snidwashere. Thank you!

“I’ve met you before.”

The girl, who was holding an impossibly long section of fabric, glanced at him. In the light her eyes looked green. He knew they had been different outside, but it didn’t alter the familiarity. He’d met her before, he was sure of it. Yet there was only doubt in her expression.

“Hm, unlikely,” she replied with that maddening accent. “I trained pretty far from here.”  
“So did I.”

“Hmm,” she said again.

The material was dark red, two-way stretch polyester. It was just over 60 feet long and was rigged to hang from the very top of the dome from the middle, so 30 feet of fabric cascaded almost to the ground in two rippling sheets. When the girl opened it fully the width was just under 75 inches. It gathered together willingly, a soft drape. The material was lit with a single dramatic spot, isolating it in the empty Big Top. It was a ladder to anywhere.

Suddenly, she moved. The girl grasped the material in both hands and scaled it, as quick as he’d seen anyone tackle it before. He watched her, a figure in tight basic blacks, climb 7 feet. With earned strength she opened the two sheets and flipped herself vertically. She wrapped her ankles in the material and then gracefully hoisted herself up, pinwheeling, until she had created a sling for herself. She held her arms over her head, grasping the material. She swung in slow orbit.

“So you say we’ve met before,” she called down. 

“When you started learning, there was a boy,” he answered. The light was intermittently in his eyes as she eclipsed it again and again. “He was older.”

“He was eleven. A mute,” she added with a reproachful edge, as though she had seen through an obvious lie. “He answered to Matt.”

Now it was his turn to climb. He went up with his arms, grasping handfuls of material like vertical rungs. When he was halfway to her he twisted the material with his legs and feet until he created himself two slings, two steps, upon which to stand. It took the weight off his arms. He too wore black matte trousers and t-shirt, skin-tight and making it easier to manipulate the fabric around his body. He had entered the orbit of the girl who claimed not to remember him.

“When you were afraid, and would hide in the rafters, he would always come up to get you.”

“Everybody knows that.”

“He never said anything – “

“He couldn’t.”

“ – but he would sit with you until you were ready to come down. Sometimes he would make shadow puppets. Dogs chasing hares, but she liked the birds best. He made wonderful birds, with his hands. Long fingers.” 

He flexed his fingers on the material.

They looked along the length of the material at one another. He shook off the slings for his feet and climbed toward her. He would lift his body with his arms, using his foot to manipulate a quick sling as a springboard to push higher, shake it off, then create another sling a little further up. He stopped a few feet from the girl. 

“If you’d been crying, you couldn’t have enough strength to come down,” he said. “So he’d put you on his back and carry you. You were only seven. Light as a feather.”

And then they began to move. Old training routines were never forgotten, and they manipulated the red fabric as though it were an extension of their bodies, a vein linking them together. It was intuitive. He watched her coil and drop, he wound and freed himself in silks and threads and all the while their eyes never left one another. When they were both suspended horizontally, perhaps three or four feet between them and spinning in tandem, he spoke again. The ground was 25 feet below, but he faced up, toward her.

“You had your own language with the boy. One look was enough. He’d let you speak for him. And when you were scolded for falling, or forgetting a routine, he would sit with you and listen.”

“I spoke enough for both of us.”

“Yeah, Karen. You did.”

She performed a quick, controlled fall, unravelling herself so that she was only a foot above. Her long red ponytail kissed his shoulder.

“You could always talk, couldn’t you?”

A single nod.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well. You heard the stories.”

“Yeah…”

“They weren’t stories.”

“You could’ve confided in me.”

“You were just a little girl. And anyway, I couldn’t. I physically _couldn’t._ ”

“What changed?”

He pulled on the material. They moved, dancing in the air around one another. The fabric criss-crossed his chest and thighs forming a perfect harness. She hung by her arms and, slowly, moved down his front. Her thighs slid down his taut sides, hooking and tightening around his waist. His arms fitted around her, muscles bunching with the effort. They had not seen one another in twelve years, but she knew he would never let go. She had surrendered her hold on the material. This close, he could see her childhood freckles had never gone away. Time had bullied her into adulthood, but the little girl he’d known was not gone.

“I listened to everyone, and in places I shouldn’t, but I never overheard where they sent you. I had to start talking so I could ask my own questions and find out.”

“You found me.”

“Eventually.” They were turning slowly, ever so slowly. “You’ve no idea what I’ve been though to find you. I’ve been everywhere. All over the world, dozens and dozens of companies.”

“I knew you’d be perfect together!”

Lesser performers would’ve fallen, or made some fatal mistake, startled as they were. The material quivered as they looked down. The Ringmaster was below, un-costumed and yet grinning that same awful grin he’d worn when he’d purchased Matt. To Matt, he was not an individual, but an amalgamation of the dozens of Ringmasters that had stood over him in life. He did not need to know him any better to find him repellent, grasping and evil. He quickly forgot the growing ache in his arms and held Karen just that little bit tighter.

The Ringmaster pointed up at them, the fat wobbling beneath his arm. “I knew she had it in her. All technical, no passion. The pair of you will be a _showstopper!_ ”

He sent them a final, foul grin, and left the Top.

Karen slipped down Matt’s leg. She slid down the fabric and landed safely on the ground. Matt twisted in the material, making his way out, but Karen was already leaving. He called to her but she didn’t stop. When he unravelled – too fast – and landed with less precision than usual, she was already gone. He searched all night, but there was no sign of her.

He retired to the rusting caravan he shared with three other performers. They had rickety bunks, but no space had been made for him yet, and his makeshift bed was on the cold wooden floor. He lay awake wondering why she had left so abruptly, if she feared the Ringmaster, or if she had grown a loyal bond, as some hapless slaves were known to do. If so, the second part of his plan might prove more difficult. She had opened up to him on the aerial silks. The Ringmaster’s arrival had closed her off again and if Matt could hate him more for that, he would. 

Somehow, he slept.

In the darkest hour before dawn a cold hand clamped over his mouth. He jolted awake, reaching for the narrow wrist. It was too dark to see, but he would know that body anywhere.

“Get up, loser,” Karen whispered, “we’re running away.”


	2. Books Bought and Sold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr user teatimeandsparkles asked for "AU Karen works in a cute little bookstore, Matt is an avid reader. You know the rest!" I took a rather primal path, so I hope she likes it.

Attraction, Karen thought as she sucked on the end of her pen, was inexplicable. As far as she was concerned there was no detectable pattern. Yes, there was a certain type of man whom she preferred, but that didn't mean she lost her head over them like this. It was uncomplicated. Yes, fancy this one, no don't fancy that one: snog, marry, avoid. Stronger feelings - impulses - didn't develop until she knew the man a bit. That was how it always worked.

So what was different this time?

He was her type, yeah, but she was experiencing a range of emotions that usually came later. And the desire, dear God, it was crippling, it drove her to distraction, and if he noticed - !

Oh!

She dropped her head the instant he looked up. The pen shot into the soft flesh between her upper lip and front teeth. She took it out, wincing, and went back to work.

Karen worked at Hummingbird Books, a modest bookshop located in Russell Square. It sold new books downstairs and pre-loved novels up; it was cramped and overflowing with words and stories. The attractive terraced front was painted cream with glossy black accents. It had a single step up off the street, a brass door knocker shaped like a gargoyle's head and a large window at street level with exactly twelve panes. Upstairs there were two sash windows stacked with books, a fate narrowly avoided by the larger one downstairs, whose view was only half obscured. There was a whimsical romance to the shop. It had retained independence and a loyal customer base in an age of big business chains and online shopping, and that was all thanks to the personality of the store and the warmth of its staff. They welcomed customers to linger, to read in the overstuffed armchairs wedged around the shop, to make themselves at home.

This customer certainly did. Karen had never seen him buy anything. For the longest time, it irritated Karen. She thought he took advantage of their hospitality and gave nothing back. But since it was against store policy to hustle him along, she was forced to stew. That was, of course, until she realised her feelings had changed and instead of wanting to turf him out, she just wanted to - 

No, don't look.

She was seated at the shop desk. It was fitted with a hutch. That meant it was a great height to assist customers making purchases, and it gave her a little privacy when doing paperwork or reading a few chapters on a quiet day.

It also meant that Karen was able to sneakily perve, visible over the hutch from the eyes up.

The object of her attraction sat in the nearest armchair, perhaps three metres away. He looked like a new-world aristocrat. His body was long, as though he'd been gently stretched, and his jeans didn't fit properly. Or perhaps that was intentional, to show off boxers in an appalling shade of pink. He leaned obnoxiously back, arms on the rests, legs crossed, foot twitching in mid-air. He possessed a strangely angular kind of beauty, rugged with that unshaved jaw, and he had a boyish charm which gave him a very individual, appearance. His hair was short and bristly. Growing out. She had barely recognised him when he'd shaved it weeks ago and she was glad to see it growing back in. Karen preferred this length to his previous, floppier hair. He had never seemed to know what to do with it.

Karen rubbed her pen dry on her dress. It was cotton and new, not deserving of this kind of mistreatment. She tried to focus on the paperwork in front of her but it was no good, not when he was so nonchalantly lazing about in front of her. Reading everything, buying nothing.

Hesitantly, she sneaked another glance. He hadn't moved the rest of his body so it was impossible to tell if his eyes were still on her unless she looked. She raised them first to the door, as if she was expecting somebody, and then allowed her gaze to wander back to the customer.

He immediately stood, snapping the novel shut. There was no mistaking what that meant. He had been watching her. She returned her attention to the paperwork but in her peripheral vision, she stalked him. He was putting the book away and pawing through others. He ran long, shapely fingers down their spines - slow, meaningful caresses which raised the hairs on her arms.

"Got any recs?"

Karen actually looked around. Of course he was addressing her - there was nobody else in the shop! She got the distinct impression he knew she'd been watching ... and maybe not just today. He was acting far too nonchalant. He would've been politer had he no reason to be cocky, she thought.

"Nothing in stock. You've read everything in stock."

"Don't often buy books," he admitted. "A book has to be really special if I'm gonna buy it."

It was tempting to suggest he get a library card, but she didn't want him to stop coming in to read. Not now. So she merely nodded.

"I can't have read everything," he continued when it was clear she had nothing to say. "There's thousands of books here." He turned around, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

She stood up. "Have you ever been upstairs?"

He stared at her, then at the ceiling, and back again. "There's an upstairs?"

"I'll show you."

Karen stuffed her feet into her flats and came around the desk. The bells hanging from the front door would warn her if anybody else came in. 

"I can't believe you've spent so much time here and you've not been upstairs."

He just shrugged as she led him up the very steep stairs at the rear of the shop. The carpet was threadbare but the oak bannister well-oiled and shiny. Her hand coasted along its smooth surface as they climbed. She could feel him behind her, his presence burning into her skin.

The second-hand sales area was open and cluttered. Shelving lined three walls and stood between the windows. It had the musty air of dog-eared pages and out of print editions. Karen liked it up here. The books felt like portals, and her favourites were all inscribed on the flyleaf: with love.

"Blimey," he mumbled, wandering in. He glanced up at the tasselled light shades and mounds of books stacked because they couldn't fit into jam-packed shelves. "Does everyone know this is here?"

"It's not a secret. Didn't you ever read the sign outside - 'books bought and sold'?"

"Uh, yeah. Just never really thought about it. Are they organised? Hell yeah, they are."

“That was my first job when I started here,” Karen said, “and it was such a jumble. Took me weeks.”

He moved deeper into the room. Karen watched him gracelessly navigating. She cringed for every stack of books he narrowly avoided toppling over. It was cluttered, but she didn’t think it was that perilous to cross. He seemed to forget that she was there as he twisted his body, craning his neck sideways to peer at titles. When he started touching the spines Karen decided to leave him to it before she made a fool out of herself. She glanced back a few times as she started downstairs, but he never looked at her.

Well, Karen thought, it wasn’t a complete disaster. She’d finally had a conversation with him as opposed to just undressing him with her eyes. He’d even seemed mildly interested until she’d lost him to her mad cataloguing skills. She returned to her desk and threw herself into invoicing, but she was never quite able to forget who was upstairs. 

At half past three, there was a ruckus upstairs like the herd was stampeding. She stood up as though she’d been bitten and stared, wide-eyed, at the roof.

“Hey!”

No reply.

Karen checked the till was locked and hurried to the foot of the stairs. “Hello…?”

When there was still no answer, Karen began climbing the stairs. At the back of her mind she thought that she should hurry, in case something terrible had happened, but dread slowed her. She didn’t know what she might find up there. Karen would be seriously cross (and disappointed) if he’d died on her.

It was nothing so grim. The customer was on the floor, digging himself out of a pillar of books he’d knocked down. When he saw her, he pulled out his earphones, which at least explained why he hadn’t answered. He looked sheepish and the tips of his ears turned red.

“They, uh, got the better of me …”

“Oh my God.” It suddenly hit her. He could sue them for this. Maybe he’d gotten hurt, even if he hadn’t, he could sue, people sued for less than this all the time! She shouldn’t have left books stacked all over the place. This was bound to happen, sooner or later, she was going to lose her job…

“Hey, I’m fine,” he said as Karen dropped to her knees, pulling books off his legs. “I’m fine, honestly. Was just … stupid.”

Karen wasn’t convinced, but she was prepared to let it go. She looked down at her nails. The blue paint was chipping away, probably thanks to her frantic scramble to free the customer. She started restacking the books. He helped.

“So I’m Matt, by the way,” he offered, passing a copy of a Le Carré book missing its dust jacket. You’re Karen, right?”

“Yeah. How’d you know?” She looked up, shaking the fringe from her eyes.

He shrugged one shoulder, trying for casual, but he had started to blush again. “Sort of picked it up,” he glanced at her, “well, I’ve made a mess, might as well go for it. I’ve listened out for your name. Sort of fancy you. A bit.”

It was a rather stunning revelation. Karen had to do everything she could not to turn him off by grinning. She turned her focus to the pile of books.

“Just a bit?”

Matt flashed her a look which said he knew exactly what she was doing. “Come off it, don’t act so coy. I’ve seen you lookin’.”

“At..?”

“Me …” He sounded a little doubtful, as if reassessing everything he’d seen over the last few months.

“Might’ve done a bit.”

“Ah!” He pointed at her, grinning. “Well, you’re always here,” she added, haughty. “Where else am I s’posed to look?”

They stacked two more Le Carrés and a Levick. This was such an unexpected turn! He’d never paid the least bit of attention to her before, so she’d thought. A crumbled tower of books, disorder and the threat of legal action did strange things to people.

“I don’t mind,” he added, handing over the last book. 

“Don’t mind what?”

“You lookin’.” Pause. “In case that wasn’t clear. And I rather fancy you a lot. In case that wasn’t clear, either.” He didn’t seem capable of shutting up. “And I knew there was an upstairs, I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Do you even like reading?”

His eyes grew wide. “Yeah. Yeah! Love reading! Love it, of course. I just don’t have money to spend on books.”

“What do you do? For a living.”

“I’d like to be an actor. But so does everyone else. I do some bar work. Gets me by.”

“Just not much left over for books.”

“Right.”

Karen pushed the stack firmly against the wall. It was a little uneven, not lining up properly with the skirting board. “There. Now it’s like it never happened. You sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, no broken bones.”

“No bruises?”

“Just me ego.”

“Okay.”

They gazed at one another. Before the silence could become uncomfortable, she stood. Matt went up an instant later.

“Happy browsing.”

“Thanks.”

Karen turned, then immediately swung back. The words rose from deep within her heart and bubbled out before she could stop them.

“D’you wanna kiss me?”

There was no time for embarrassment. “God yes,” he replied with great conviction. Matt stepped forward and took her face in his hands.

His lips were warm, soft, parted for her. He knew how to kiss. He was offering himself to her, tender yet firm, curious. He broke all the rules. Just as romantic feelings were slow to develop, Karen did not go around kissing men she didn’t know. Attraction was inexplicable, and so was passion. Once-reliable barriers crumbled. Karen realised as she felt his fingers drifting through her hair that there wasn’t a single thing she wouldn’t let this man do to her. She had never wanted anyone so much.

“Oh, you gorgeous thing,” he mumbled by her lips.

God, his voice. Those beautifully shaped, long fingers were in her hair, separating the strands, drawing it over her ears. Up this close, she could smell him: a subtle cologne that would stay with her forever. Dots of stubble pricked her fingers as she traced his jaw, tenderly turning his head for a new, deeper kiss. They breathed one another in – scent and taste, texture and soul. This was electrifying, like no kiss before it. Passion could be disciplined, or so she had always thought, drunk when needed and bottled thereafter. Yet this was irresistible. Karen did not care where they were. He had undone all her good sense. Their hands were pulling at one another’s hair, at their clothes, exploring. Matt’s palm moved up her hip and hesitated beneath her breast. Apparently, some good sense remained to him.

“Never done this before,” he admitted. She tried to concentrate on what he was saying as opposed to how good he sounded when breathless. “Never just … hardly know you … that’s very good …”

She was burning a trail of kisses down his neck, peeling aside the collar of his t-shirt to expose his skin. “Karen. Bookshop. What else d’you need to know?”

“Um. Um,” he seemed to cast his mind about for questions, gathering scattered wits. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Okay. Yeah. I’m um, thirty. Thirty-one.”

“Old man,” she teased.

“Experienced,” Matt corrected. “Can I?”

He finally moved his palm over her breast. She arched her back and pushed into him, giving him lease to touch her. Karen closed her eyes briefly, enjoying his warmth.

“But I’ve never done this before, just out of the blue,” he continued. “You’re fucking gorgeous, you know that? Never thought …”

“Me neither,” said Karen. She caressed his back, working the flimsy material up so she could slide her hands underneath. He shivered at the contact. “I’m normally … not like this …”

“I know. I know.”

“So weird, it’s so weird.”

“Kiss me again,” he crushed her to him, hands wandering hungrily, unable to remain still. “God, I want you.”

“Let’s just …”

She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. What she had in mind was easily both the best and worst idea of her life. She longed to indulge and the consequences seemed so very far away. All she knew was that this was utter madness and nothing had ever felt so good.

“Okay,” he answered the unfinished sentence. Matt lifted her off the floor, bending his spine back to bear her weight. They staggered to one of the few clear spots on the wall, squashing between a shelf and the stack of books they’d repaired. It immediately toppled again. They laughed into one another’s mouths, but couldn’t let one another go.

“I feel crazy,” she said when they broke for air. “I feel really, really crazy.”

“This is a fantasy of yours?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Definitely.”

“D’you wanna?”

“Yeah.” His fists bunched the material at her hips. He paused. “You are thinking of … you know?”

“Sex. Right here. With a stranger.”

Karen couldn’t tell if he blushed. He nodded, breathless. “With me. Matt. Thirty-one. Bookshop loiterer. Nearly a stranger.”

“Close enough.”

They grinned at one another and the final barriers collapsed. 

The shop was still open. They could at any moment be interrupted. This occurred to Karen, and she didn’t care. The situation graduated from insanity to necessity. Matt lifted her again so they were hip to hip. They were almost the same height. She liked the way he felt – his long, lean body locking against hers. Matt’s kisses came with greater purpose, organic lust. She had never felt someone so keenly on her wavelength before. She very much wanted to free him from that t-shirt, taste him, touch him all over, but that was too great a risk.

“Do you have a - ?”

“Back pocket. Wallet.”

“Classy,” Karen smirked, wiggling his brown leather wallet from his rear pocket. She flipped it open with one hand and studied his ID. He caressed her thighs. “You are who you say you are, then, Matthew Robert Smith. And now I know where you live.”

“Should I be expecting you?

“When you least expect it. Condoms in your wallet, though?”

“A bloke can live in hope. Inside pocket.”

Karen tugged out a small packet. This was a big enough dose of realism to knock sense into her, if she wanted to be sensible. 

She didn’t.

It happened quickly after that. There were urgent kisses as her knickers went down and her dress went up. He gathered and pinned the fabric at her hip, panting feverishly as she unzipped his jeans. Carefully, she worked down his boxers. His cock poked over the band, both sexy and obscene in this setting. She could scarcely believe this was happening until she stroked him through the obnoxious pink cotton. He groaned. There was no way she could have imagined that sound. They worked together to open the fiddly little packet and unroll it over his cock. 

“This is fuckin’ unreal,” he managed. He gripped her leg and hooked his arm beneath her thigh.

Matt kissed her seconds before he pushed inside. It promised so much more than a quick fuck in public. She tasted unspoken promises. Right now, she did not much care if they eventuated. It just tasted so sweet.

They held their breath and stared intently into one another’s eyes as he entered her. Matt shifted his hand from his cock, fingers dancing over her slick folds. Karen released her breath with a shudder. She glanced down.

“Push all the way in.”

He obliged her with a deep thrust, groaning at the sound she made as he filled her completely. She stood pinned between man and wall. Matt grinned, kissed her quickly, and began to move.

There, the sweetness ended. Matt and Karen found one another’s rhythm after a few awkward movements. His arms encircled him, squeezing his shirt as they brought each other closer. They never forgot where they were. It was at the centre of the excitement. Hands were pressed over mouths, muffling cries and moans as he thrust harder and faster.

Karen’s climax took her by surprise. She came hard, clinging to him as her vision blurred. Pleasure pulsed from her core to the tips of her fingers and her tightly-curled toes. Matt was with her an instant later. The tempo of his thrusts altered, rougher and faster as he came. He dropped his head into the crook of her neck. Palms slipped from mouths and the sound of laboured breathing filled the shop.

Her knees were week. She adjusted her grip on Matt and let her leg down. She thought it was time to say something and she tried, but he was quick to press his lips to her for wet, messy kisses. These said more than Karen ever could, but were they enough?

Downstairs, the doorbells jingled.

Matt pulled quickly out. Karen pushed him away and hastily pulled her clothing back together. She smoothed her hair and turned to go downstairs.

He snatched her hand before she could get far. Matt kissed her, just once, and released her.

A standard browser was lurking downstairs. Karen gave him a smile about a billion watts brighter than usual. She made a show of straightening a few books, but her mind was miles away. She alternated between replaying what happened upstairs and imagining what Matt might say when he came down.

When he did some seven minutes later (not that she was clock-watching…) Karen was serving the customer. Matt left quietly, offering only a brief smile.

She didn’t know what to make of that.

What was she supposed to make of that?

Her happiness took a beating. He hadn’t done anything wrong, technically … but he hadn’t done what she’d expected. She thought he’d linger. He’d spent hours and hours hanging around and now he couldn’t wait to go? It wasn’t difficult to imagine why, and her mind wandered to the worse possible scenario.

He’d gotten what he wanted.

Hadn’t she?

As the afternoon wore on, Karen realised she had. Of course she had! That inexplicable attraction had been dealt with. All those hours spent watching him had been exclusively sexual. Karen hadn’t fantasised about his personality! It had always, only been, about what she wanted to do to his body. She started to feel better about herself. Besides. He was a bartending, struggling actor. What future was there in that?

She closed up the shop at four. Karen hoped there was still enough heat left in the day to do something – take a long walk, maybe. She needed to clear her head and at least try to stop reliving the encounter.

Try to stop imagining how he’d look with his shirt off.

Because her preoccupation was satisfied. Dealt with. Done!

She stepped outside. There was still enough warmth in the air for that walk. She locked the front door. It had a knack to it, she had to pull and twist at the same time …

“I meant it when I said I fancied you a lot,” came a familiar voice. 

She looked up with a start. There was Matt. Waiting for her. His hands were stuffed in his pockets. He seemed nervous, his fine eyebrows raised, uncertain what she ought to expect.

“Just in case that wasn’t clear …”

Karen ducked her head to hide a growing smile. She stepped closer. “I was gonna go for a walk.”

“Like company?”

Karen smiled and slipped the shop keys into her bag.


End file.
